#goudi

They feel like doctors on a humanitarian mission. Their patients are mainly children of refugee families, who live either in apartments, reception centers or are homeless. The doctors are aided by interpreters provided by the hospital. In their office, the doctors have written a list of useful words and phrases in Arabic and Farsi.

In recent years, Dr. Stavroula Dikalioti and Dr. Smaragda Papachristidou, two pediatricians at Kyriakou Hospital in Goudi, (one of the largest pediatric hospitals in Greece), have been working as a team quietly and steadily to provide, as much as possible, full and affordable care for children and families. They examine 10 to 15 cases daily, at least two of which are vaccinations that need updating. Often, the patients are unaccompanied minors, who are undocumented and don’t have Greek social security number.

“When you find out that because of your intervention, a homeless child, who had been sleeping on a park bench, will be placed in a hostel, it’s obviously our priority,” says Dr. Dikalioti, a pediatrician and academic fellow at the pediatric clinic of the University of Athens’ Department of Nursing. “We don’t check our appointment book to see if the day’s appointments are already filled. If we are needed, we take action immediately.”